Ambervale
The Elm Room
The former dining room of the house, panelled in elm and seating thirty-eight. Four courses or three, mutton and garden vegetables done seriously, and a cheese board kept at the right temperature for once.
A country house casino hotel since 1784
AmbervaleHouse & Park
Twenty-four bedrooms in a grey-stone manor at the head of its own valley, a walled kitchen garden that still feeds the kitchen, a bar among the bookcases of the Long Library, and a casino room under the glass of the old orangery.
18+The Orangery Room is our land-based casino floor and admits adults of 18 and over. Photo identification at the door, every visit.
The house
A merchant's house that learned to keep late hours
Ambervale House was finished in 1784 for a linen merchant with more money than relatives, which is why the plan is so odd: a formal south front five bays wide, a service wing bolted on without apology, and a staircase far grander than the number of bedrooms behind it. The family held the valley for four generations, let it go in 1923, and the house spent sixty years as a school before the roof gave way.
Restoration took the best part of a decade. The plasterwork in the stone hall was pieced back from fragments found in the cellar; the sash windows were rebuilt with their original weights; the school's partition walls came down, which is how twenty-four bedrooms rather than forty came out of a building this size. The orangery, glazed in 1851 and derelict by 1970, got new glass and became the casino room.
What runs here now is a hotel with a casino inside it, not a casino with beds attached. Breakfast is slow and the post arrives late. The gardeners are in the walled garden by seven. From five in the afternoon the Orangery Room opens to adults, and the house takes on a second register: the click of a chip, somebody laughing in the Long Library, a dog asleep by the hall fire regardless.
Everything happens here, in person, on the estate. There is nothing on this website to play, stake or pay for.
- Bedrooms
- Twenty-four
- Casino floor
- The Orangery Room, 18+
- At table
- Three rooms & a library bar
- Grounds
- Forty acres of parkland
- Water
- Bath House in the old laundry
- Reception
- Staffed day and night, all year
Park & walled garden
Forty acres, one gardener's opinion
The drive comes in under limes planted as a double avenue in 1790, of which eleven are originals and the rest replacements of various dates; the head gardener can tell you which is which and will, at length. Past the gatehouse the park opens out: a ha-ha instead of a fence, a cedar on the south lawn with a bench built round it, and sheep that belong to the neighbouring farm and are tolerated as landscape.
The walled garden lies behind the stable court, four-square and warm, with espaliered pears along the south wall and glass frames that have been patched so often they are mostly putty. It supplies the kitchens with soft fruit from June, salad for most of the year, and more courgettes in August than any hotel can honestly use. Guests are welcome to wander it; the only closed door is the bothy, where the gardeners keep their kettle and their peace.
Beyond the walls a mown path runs down to the lake, which is really a dammed stream and shallow enough to see the bottom. Herons fish it at dawn. There is a boathouse with two leaking punts, both retired, and a dovecote of 1812 whose birds are descendants of the original stock and entirely uninterested in people.
None of this is manicured. Leaves stay where they fall until the paths need them cleared, and the long grass is cut twice a summer for the sake of the orchids. If you want a lawn like baize, the only one on the estate is the croquet square, and we are protective of it.
Bedrooms
Four kinds of room, numbered as they were in 1784
Every room has a wool blanket, a carafe filled each evening, a radio that only gets long wave and a kettle with proper tea. Floor areas are measured to the plaster and rounded down.
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Stable court, ground floor
Stable Court Room
In the converted coach house across the cobbles, with a door that opens straight onto the court. Thick walls, small windows, and the quietest beds on the estate once the kitchen deliveries are done by eight.
- Floor area27 m²
- BedQueen
- GuestsUp to 2
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South front, first floor
Parkland Room
Two sashes facing the cedar and the ha-ha, with the original shutters and a window seat deep enough to read in. You will hear the rooks at first light; nobody has ever found a way round that.
- Floor area34 m²
- BedKing
- GuestsUp to 2
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West wing corner
Dovecote Suite
A sitting room with its own fireplace, laid and lit on request, and a bedroom beyond it looking down the lime avenue. The dovecote itself is forty yards away, which is close enough to watch and far enough to sleep.
- Floor area61 m²
- BedKing and a daybed
- GuestsUp to 3
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Top of the service stair
Steward's Apartment
The whole attic floor of the old service wing: two bedrooms under the beams, a small kitchen, a bath by the window and a landing wide enough for a table. Reached by its own stair, with lift access to the floor below.
- Floor area108 m²
- BedroomsTwo
- GuestsUp to 4
The Orangery Room · adults 18+
Our casino floor, under 1851 glass
The casino at Ambervale is one long glazed room with a tiled floor and a row of orange trees in tubs that are moved aside each autumn to make space for the tables. It is a small casino by any measure: seven tables, a card room behind the end wall where the potting benches used to stand, a machine alcove of eighteen cabinets, and a counter that serves the floor its coffee and its soda water.
Our casino hosts teach rather than hover. Ask for the rules of punto banco and you will get them properly, with a demonstration hand and no stake on the table. Most people who have never been inside a casino before start on a Wednesday, when one blackjack table is run deliberately slowly for beginners.
Say it plainly: this is a land-based casino room inside a hotel, open to adult visitors who come through the door in person. This website is not a casino. It offers no online games, accepts no bets and processes no deposits or payments whatsoever.
- RouletteTwo wheels, one of them single-zero
- BlackjackThree tables, one slow table midweek
- Punto bancoEvenings from six, taught on request
- The Card RoomPoker on Thursday and Saturday
- Machine alcoveEighteen cabinets, no note acceptors
- Casino hostsOn the floor every hour we are open
Rules of the room
- Admission begins at 18, or at the higher age where local rules set one.
- Photo identification is checked at the door on every visit, with no exceptions made for regulars.
- Tell a host the limit you have set yourself before you play, and they will come and remind you of it.
- A break, a month off or a written self-exclusion can be arranged at the desk, in confidence.
- No credit is given anywhere on the estate, and there is no cash machine on the casino floor.
- Telephones stay in pockets at the tables; coats and bags go to the stand by the inner door.
Doors openSunday to Thursday, 17:00 until 02:00. Friday and Saturday, 16:00 until 03:00. Last admission thirty minutes before close.
Eat & drink
Three rooms, one bar among the books
The walled garden sets the menus more than the chef would like to admit. Lists are rewritten on Mondays, and the bread is baked in the old scullery oven.
The Garden Hall
Glass on two sides, facing the kitchen garden. Breakfast is cooked to order until half past ten; lunch is soup, a pie and two salads, written on a slate by the door.
The Long Library
Four thousand books, a ladder on a rail and a bar counter fitted where the map chest stood. Sherry by the glass, forty-odd whiskies and a short list of drinks with no alcohol in them at all.
The Dairy
A cold marble room off the stable court, now a counter for scones, seed cake and coffee to carry into the park. Tea at four is served here and in the stone hall when the fire is lit.
What is on
The week at Ambervale
Seven fixtures that hold their shape through the year. Residents and visitors are equally welcome; two of them want a word with reception first.
Monday
Round the walled garden
An hour with whoever is on duty in the garden, secateurs in hand, usually ending at the pear wall.
Tuesday
Supper at the long table
One menu, one table of twenty-two in the stone hall, strangers seated next to each other on purpose.
Wednesday
Beginners in the Orangery Room
A host runs a slow blackjack table and explains roulette odds with a pencil and paper. No stake expected. Adults 18 and over only, identification at the door.
Thursday
Claret in the cellar
Six glasses poured by the house manager under the vaults, with bread and a hard cheese. Twelve places.
Friday
Quartet in the stone hall
Strings under the plaster ceiling, which does extraordinary things to a slow movement. Doors at eight.
Saturday
Telescope on the ha-ha
No street lights for miles. An amateur astronomer from the village sets up two instruments and answers everything.
Sunday
Long lunch in the Garden Hall
Four courses, served on platters, nobody hurried out before four o'clock. Booking advised, especially in winter.
Fixtures move for weddings and for weather. Reception chalks the current week on the board in the stone hall.
The Bath House
A pool where the laundry used to steam
The estate laundry stood apart from the house for fear of fire, which turned out to be ideal: one tall room, a stone floor with drains already in it, and a north window the length of the wall. It now holds a pool fourteen metres long, kept at twenty-nine degrees, with loungers at the shallow end and a stack of towels that someone refills without being asked.
There is no music in the Bath House and no screens. People read, swim a bit, fall asleep and wake up embarrassed. That is the intended effect.
The poolFourteen metres, 29°C, open 07:00 – 21:00
Steam roomSlate-lined, scented with garden rosemary
Two treatment roomsMassage and foot treatments, booked at reception
Lane hour07:00 – 08:00 for anybody counting lengths
Good to know
Three things worth reading before you set off
Arrival
Rooms are ready at 15:00 and we ask for them back by 11:00, though bags can sit with the porter on either side of that. The drive is a mile of gravel under the limes; take it slowly, and mind the cattle grid. Parking is in the stable court, and there are two charging points by the arch.
Families
Children are welcome in the bedrooms, at every table and in the Bath House between nine and six. Cots and a quieter room on the same corridor can be arranged. The Orangery Room is closed to anyone under 18 at every hour we are open, including children with a parent beside them, and the Long Library goes adults-only after half past nine.
Access
A step-free route runs from the stable court through reception to the Garden Hall, the Long Library, the Orangery Room and the Bath House. The lift serves three floors of the main house. Two bedrooms are adapted, with level showers and wider doors. Reception has a hearing loop. Tell us what helps and we will have it ready.
18+
Read our position
An evening at the tables should stay an evening
The Orangery Room is for adults of 18 or over, and our staff would rather close a table early than watch somebody chase a loss. A host will hold a limit with you, book you a break, or set up a confidential self-exclusion the same day. The independent organisations we point to are listed in full on the next page.
Questions
What people ask reception
Is Ambervale an online casino?
No. Ambervale is a country house hotel with a land-based casino room inside it, and this website is a description of that house: its bedrooms, its kitchens, its park and the Orangery Room. There are no games to play here, no bets to place, no deposits to make and no payment of any kind is processed through these pages.
Who is allowed into the Orangery Room?
Adults of 18 or over, or older where the local legal minimum is higher. A passport, identity card or photocard licence is checked at the door on every visit. We do this to every guest, which spares the staff from guessing anybody's age.
Must I stay the night to use the casino?
Not at all. The Orangery Room, all three dining rooms and most of the week's fixtures take outside visitors, subject to the age check at the casino door and to room on the night. Weekends fill up; a note to reception settles it.
What should I wear to dinner or to the tables?
Nothing is required beyond being dressed for a country house in the evening. Jackets are common in the Elm Room and not asked for. The Orangery Room draws the line at wet walking gear and football shirts, which has more to do with the furniture than with manners.
Can a host really set a limit for me?
Yes, and it is a normal part of the job rather than a favour. Agree a figure or a finishing time with any host before you begin and the floor team will hold you to it for the evening. Ask for a longer break and they will write it down and turn you away at the door until it expires.
Are children welcome in the house?
Yes, in the bedrooms, at the tables, in the park and in the Bath House during family hours. The casino floor is adults-only at all times. There is a toy chest in the stone hall and a tree in the park that has been climbed by four generations.
Can we take the house for a wedding or a party?
The stone hall seats seventy for dinner and the walled garden takes a marquee without anyone having to move a wheelbarrow. Write to us with your dates and a rough number and we will tell you honestly whether it fits.
Enquiries
[email protected]
Write to us with your dates
Tell us when you would like to come, which room sounds right and anything that would make the stay easier: a cot, a ground-floor bedroom, a late arrival after the kitchen has closed. Reception reads email twice a day and answers within one working day.
If you want to arrange a limit or a self-exclusion for the casino room before you travel, mark the message for the casino manager and no one else will read it.
- [email protected]
- Address
- The Ambervale Casino Hotel, Ambervale Park, by the lime avenue
- Orangery Room
- Sun–Thu 17:00–02:00 · Fri–Sat 16:00–03:00 · adults 18+
- Reception
- Staffed 24 hours, every day of the year